No Left
Turns
This is a wonderful
piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and
president of NBC News.
In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.
My father never drove
a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a
car.
He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he
drove was a 1926 Whippet.
'In those days,' he told me when he was in his 90s, 'to drive a car you
had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look
every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or
drive through life and miss it.'
At which point my mother, a sometimes salty woman, chimed in:
'Oh, bull----!' she said. 'He hit a horse.'
'Well,' my father said, 'there was that, too.'
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbours
all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the
VanLaningham's across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopson's two
doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.
My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , Iowa , would take the streetcar
to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar
home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the
streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and
sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbours had cars but we
had none. 'No one in the family drives,' my mother would explain, and that
was that.
But, sometimes , my father would say, 'But as soon as one of you boys
turns 16, we'll get one.' It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us
would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my
parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts
department at a Chevy dealership downtown.
It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with
everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my
brother's car.
Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it
didn't make sense to my mother.
So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to
drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to
drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons
to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. 'Who can
your mother hurt in the cemetery?' I remember him saying more than once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in
the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he
loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and
appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic,
and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem
to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.
(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)
He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years
or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustine 's Church. She
would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back
until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning.
If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk,
meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.
If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head
back to the church. He called the priests 'Father Fast' and 'Father Slow.'
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever
she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were
going to the beauty parlour, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a
stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could
listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop
by, he'd explain: 'The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base
made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire
on third base scored.'
If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the
bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was
always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still
driving, he said to me, 'Do you want to know the secret of a long life?'
'I guess so,' I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
'No left turns,' he said.
'What?' I asked.
'No left turns,' he repeated. 'Several years ago, your mother and I read
an article that said most accidents that old people are in, happen when
they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.
As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth
perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a
left turn.'
'What?' I said again.
'No left turns,' he said. 'Think about it. Three rights are the same as a
left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights.'
'You're kidding!' I said, and I turned to my mother for support. 'No,' she
said, 'your father is right. We make three rights. It works.' But then she
added: 'Except when your father loses count.'
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started
laughing.
'Loses count?' I asked.
'Yes,' my father admitted, 'that sometimes happens. But it's not a
problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again.'
I couldn't resist. 'Do you ever go for 11?' I asked.
'No,' he said ' If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a
bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off
another day or another week.'
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car
keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she
was 90.
She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at
102.
They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a
few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid
$8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never
had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower
cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)
He continued to walk daily - - he had me get him a treadmill when he was
101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to
keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the
moment he died.
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to
give a talk in a neighbouring town, and it was clear to all three of us
that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation
about politics and newspapers and things in the news.
A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, 'You know, Mike, the first
hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.' At one point in
our drive that Saturday, he said, 'You know, I'm probably not going to
live much longer.'
'You're probably right,' I said.
'Why would you say that?' He countered, somewhat irritated.
'Because you're 102 years old,' I said.
'Yes,' he said, 'You're right.' He stayed in bed all the next day.
That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him
through the night.
He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look
gloomy , he said:
'I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet.'
An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
'I want you to know,' he said, clearly and lucidly, 'that I am in no pain.
I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this
Earth could ever have.'
A short time later, he died.
I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then
how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.
I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, or because he
quit taking left turns.
Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat
you right. Forget about those who don't. Believe everything happens for a
reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it.
Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be
worth it.
Where are You?
© 2003
Julie Jordan Scott
Surrounded by cars in the midst of Saturday afternoon traffic, I glanced
at my brother John. I was in the midst of a quandary.
Traffic was heavy on
the Southern Orange County freeways on
this beach friendly Saturday afternoon so I opted to drive on
roads that were unfamiliar to me believing it would save me both time and
frustration.
I knew basically which direction to take to get to the destination in
question, I just wasn't clear on this particular point on the map. John
most likely wouldn't be much help, or so I thought.
John is fourteen months younger than me. We are the fourth child
and fifth child in a family with six children. Our bond has
always been especially strong as I was his fiercest advocate, continual
collaborator and protector when we were little.
This was important because John was different than my friend's brothers
and sisters. He has Down's Syndrome. As a child I protected
him so that I would also keep myself safe. In our "little
kid" world all was well as long as we stuck together.
Now several decades later, that tie holds us still. I look beyond
John's disability to communicate with him. This was his
neighborhood so he might have an answer for me.
"I have no idea where we are, John. Do you know where
we are?"
As clear as a bell John's words he penetrated my
heart. "With Julie" he said.
The most important place we were was not a point on
the map
nor was it a destination. The most important place we were
was together. With one another.
Do you discern where you are on a regular, perhaps daily, basis?
Do you focus on the "not knowing the point on the map" or do you
focus on who you are with in that moment, even if the "who you are
with" is your authentic self?
Life is about each part of the map. The destination, the getting
lost and continuing and its about the who you are with in each
moment of the journey.
Your task is to stay WITH yourself the whole time. If you can
remember to stay WITH yourself, the fact that you veer off course
from time to time or perhaps find yourself on an
unfamiliar road will provide opportunities rather than mishaps.
Mark Twain said, "What is there that confers the noblest delight? What
is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any
other experience can bring to him? Discovery!" As I drove
with John on that beautiful Saturday, I once again discovered the
brilliance within my brother. I once again discovered the
brilliance that is within each of us.
Where are you?
********************************************
Julie Jordan Scott, Personal Success and Creativity Coach
Dare to Discover Your Passion, Decide to Live Your Destiny!
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Assessing Character
By Bob Burg, author of
"Winning Without Intimidation: How to
Master the Art of Positive Persuasion"
There's a saying that a good way
to judge someone's character
is by how he or she treats those who cannot do anything for
them. What's interesting is that for the person doing the
"treating," this goes much further than just being a nice
person.
What's
in a good soup? Love, laughter, good friends!
Entree
HomeMade
